Brock Lesnar retired from mixed martial arts after Alistair Overeem stopped him with one vicious kick to the body in the first round of their heavyweight bout at UFC 141 on Friday night.

Lesnar is the UFC's biggest pay-per-view star and the former heavyweight champion, but his return from a 14-month injury absence ended with Lesnar staggering and crumpling against the cage. He couldn't recover from a kick from Overeem (36-11), the 6-foot-5 Dutch kickboxing star making his UFC debut.

Lesnar (5-3) is a former NCAA champion wrestler and pro-wrestling star who rose swiftly to the top of MMA. But he has fought just three times in the past 2½ years while dealing with bouts of diverticulitis, a lower-intestinal ailment that nearly killed him.